[Salvation]

San Pietro in Vaticano

 

Day XXXIII. Sunday, Week V

"Strengthen in faith and love your pilgrim Church on earth; your servant (and my bishop) Pope John Paul II, and all the bishops, with the clergy, and the entire people your son has gained for you" (Eucharistic Prayer III).

San Pietro in Vaticano. Today used to be called Passion Sunday. As we continue our journey to the Easter mysteries it is good to reflect upon the cross, the instrument of our salvation. As a seminarian recently told me, the cross was light just enough for a man to carry and just strong enough to carry a man. Indeed it carried the Savior of the world! As one approaches Saint Peter's, in the midst of Bernini's colonnade, stands the pyramid which once stood watch in the median of Nero's circus (near the present day sacristy) over the crucifixion of Saint Peter. It is crowned with a relic of the true cross and now casts its shadow over us. On the base we read, "Ecce crux Domini fugit partes adversae. Vicit Leo de tribu Iuda." ("Behold the cross of the Lord from which the
adversarial parties flee. The Lion of the tribe of Judea is victorious!")  

 

As we leave Saint Peter's, we read, "Christus vincit. Christus regnat. Christus imperat. Christus ab omni malo plebem suam defendat." ("Christ is victorious. Christ reigns. Christ commands. Christ defends his people from all evil.") Today's pictures are of the first vicar of Christ and his successor.

 

[Salvation]

Stational Church: Monday in the Fifth Week of Lent

 

 

 

 

Today's Stational Church is at the Church of St. Chrysogonus.

Information is from the Canon Regulars of St. John Cantius:

We are branches of Christ, the Vine. As such, we share in His life, share in His joys, and must share also in His sufferings, and thus—as the Apostle so boldly put it—make up in our own body what is yet wanting in the sufferings of Christ, the Head. This we shall do gladly in these holy Passion days. Our mortifications, our self-discipline, our temptations, our trials from within and from without, all our sufferings, we will unite with Christ's Blessed Passion. They will then be lifted out of their own smallness and will share in the greatness and efficacy of His sufferings. He will suffer in us and we in Him.

We humbly ask St. Chrysogonus, in whose Roman home we observe today's mysteries of redemption, that he would accompany us to "the Lord of Hosts, the King of Glory."

Let us pray: O God, hear my prayer. Give ear to the words of my mouth. Save me, O Lord, by Thy name and in Thy power deliver me. Through Christ, Our Lord.
Amen.